Chapter Text
Yuri walks out to the ice, headphones in, head lowered. He can’t even bring himself to watch the rest of Otabek’s performance. He has to concentrate.
He lifts his head and skates out onto the ice.
He hears Otabek shouting, “Yuri, davai!” Yuri only gives him a thumbs up in return. He doesn’t need good luck. He’s going to make his own.
Yakov. Lilia. Grandpa. Yuuko and the rest.
And Katsuki Yuuri…watch this closely.
The first few jumps go well. He can’t let it get to his head.
He remembers last year’s Grand Prix Final, watching Yuuri’s free skate and thinking, He screws up his jumps, but his step sequence grabs your attention. I want to see him skate with no mistakes.
He returns to the present, face hard. What, you’re gonna retire once you win gold? You don’t care anymore now that you got a higher score than Victor’s? That’s bull! Don’t disappoint me! There are no gold medals for pigs to feed on!
It’s the second half now, and Yuri’s starting to feel the exhaustion set in, but he can’t let that get to him either. I’m going to win!
And then he falls on his quad toe. He gets up right away, but he can immediately feel the despair swell in him. What if that’s the mistake that keeps him from winning? What if that’s the mistake that lets Yuuri leave?
No. Don’t think that. Finish strong. He raises his arms on his next jumps.
Are you watching, Katsuki Yuuri? I’m gonna beat your record someday.
He adds in another quad.
If you retire now, I’ll make you regret it for the rest of your life. Moron!
He finishes the skate, but now it’s all catching up with him. Yuuri’s going to leave now, just because Yuri wasn’t good enough. He’s going to be gone, it’ll be all his fault—
The tears come unbidden, and he falls to his knees.
Please, stay. Please. Please realize how hard I tried for you, and stay, and then—even if we’re not together, it’ll be all right, so—
He waits for his score with baited breath. He gets a 200.97.
They add up the score, and it’s the slowest moment Yuri has ever experienced.
319.53. 0.12 points over Yuuri’s.
He could almost cry again, but he keeps it together. Surely Yuuri will have to stay now, right? With that narrow of a win, he’ll have to come back, again and again—
Victor finds him after that, hugs him again, whispers, “You did it, thank you,” like it was Victor’s idea and not his. Yuri is too busy being relieved to get mad, though.
“Hey,” he says gruffly. “Where is the pork cutlet bowl? I need to talk to him.”
Victor pauses, smiles like he knows. “He’s calling his parents. I can bring you to him.”
“Thanks,” he says reluctantly.
When they find Yuuri, he’s just hanging up, and he brightens at the sight of them. “Yuri! I’ve been wanting to find you, I wanted to say—”
Yuri holds up a hand. “No. I have to say something first.”
Victor quietly excuses himself, Yuuri blinking adorably.
“I’m going to say something, and you’re not going to interrupt me, okay?”
Yuuri nods, still looking confused.
Yuri takes a deep breath, clenches his fists, then says, “When I first fell in love with you, I was eight years old.”
Yuuri’s eyes widen, and he opens his mouth as if to speak.
“No interrupting!” Yuri yells, and Yuuri’s mouth snaps shut almost comically. “I was eight years old, and I saw your skating, and it was like all of these bad things that had happened to me suddenly had a purpose, and their purpose was to lead me to you.
Everything I did after that, everything, was so that I could reach you. And bad things still happened, and life still sucked, but it was all okay because I knew there was a light just ahead of me, and I thought when I finally caught it, I would finally be happy.”
Yuri taps his fingers on his hips, thinking, then says, “Then I came to Hasetsu, and I got to know you more, and you were so much better than I had even imagined. You’re so earnest, and nice, and you put so much of yourself into everything you do, and each day we spent together was another moment I fell in love.
Anyway, it was just a month, but during that month I really felt like I had finally found that happiness I had been waiting for all my life. I knew you didn’t like me back, and I sort of knew you never would, but it was fine because we were together.
But then you won at Hot Springs on Ice, and Victor stayed with you, and I already knew you were falling in love with him. But I still couldn’t give up, you know? I had loved you for so long that it felt like a part of me, and I didn’t know who I would be without it, if I’d be anything at all. I figured if I kept clinging to it, then…I might not be happy, but at least I’d be someone.
So I kept working, and I kept following your light, and a part of me still thought, someday. Someday I’ll change and become someone he can love back, and all I have to do is fight for that day.
It wasn’t until the Rostelecom Cup, when you stuck up for me in front of Lilia, that I knew I had never really loved you until that day, and it wasn’t until the next day when Victor left that I truly knew I would never have you. Because Victor makes you happy, and that’s what you deserve.”
Yuuri looks like his heart is breaking. Yuri knows his is, a bit. He looks away for the first time, at a random spot on the wall. “So this isn’t me trying to change anything, or trying to make you feel guilty for wanting to chase that happiness you’ve found with him. This is me doing my best to move on. Because this isn’t fair to you, but it’s even less fair to me. And…I don’t know what I deserve, if I deserve anything at all, but I’d like to think maybe someday I’ll deserve to be happy too.”
Yuri scuffs his feet on the ground, and mumbles, “So, yeah. That’s how it is. I guess that this is goodbye.”
He’s proud of himself. He finally managed to express his feelings. Yuuri knows now, so he probably won’t want anything to do with him anymore. But that’s okay.
He turns to leave when he feels a hand on his shoulder. He looks back, and Yuuri is frowning. “You don’t get to just say all that and not let me say anything at all.”
“What can you say? I don’t want to hear that you’re sorry. You’re always sorry. I don’t want to hear that you can’t accept my feelings, or whatever, or that I’m too young, or that you’re too old, or whatever else. I already know all of that.”
“If I promise not to say any of that, will you let me talk?”
Yuri scowls, still not able to meet Yuuri’s eyes. “Fine.”
“Good. Let’s see, where can I even start…?” Yuuri sighs. “Okay, first thing, since you aren’t, I’m going to be insulted on your behalf that you could ever think even for a moment that you’re not so much more than your feelings. You’re snarky and smart and you always have something to say, and you’re extremely kind and thoughtful, even if you’d never admit it. You’re also probably the strongest person I’ve ever met. You go through so much every day and you do it all without complaining or even really telling anyone, and while we’re on the topic, you’re the first person to ever get the gold medal in the Grand Prix Final in their debut senior year, and you’re daring to say you’re not anything without me?”
Yuri starts to protest, but Yuuri holds up a finger, eyes twinkling. “Nope. No interrupting. Second point, you deserve the entire world, and I will personally fight anyone who says otherwise, including you. I’d say that you deserve way more than me, but I imagine that’s the type of self-deprecation that would piss you off—that’s a double standard, by the way, but I guess I shouldn’t be talking—so I won’t say anything except for that you have such an incredible future ahead of you and that you will completely and utterly deserve every bit of it.
Final point, you don’t have to change for any of us to love you. Yuuko talks my ear off about you every day, do you know that? I know you don’t like Victor, but he really cares about you. And…” Yuuri hesitates, then finally says, “This might be cruel to say after what you just told me, but if you had ever bothered to ask me, you’d know I love you too. Not like you want, maybe, but as best as I can. You’re so important to me. I mean…what I wanted to tell you when I first saw you was that your performance tonight was the reason I decided to keep skating. You’re the reason I’m still here. So when you stand here and tell me that you’re trying to say goodbye, after skating so well that I had to stay, I can’t accept that.”
Now Yuri is the one blinking at Yuuri, trying to keep tears at bay.
“I want to keep fighting against you. I want to keep getting to know you, how you really are. And if you need time apart from me to feel better, then do that, but please never doubt that I’ll be right here waiting when you return.” Yuuri’s eyes are fierce.
Yuri barely even notices that his feet are taking him a step forward, and then forward again, until he’s falling against Yuuri. The tears come in earnest then.
Yuuri returns the hug, uncaring of the tears soaking his jacket, and rubs gentle circles into Yuri’s back. He murmurs something in Japanese, crooning it like a lullaby, and Yuri doesn’t know what he’s saying, but it calms him anyway.
Eventually, Yuri’s tears slow and then stop. “Are you okay?” Yuuri asks.
“No,” Yuri says mulishly.
“Fair enough.”
“But,” Yuri says, biting his lip. “I think I will be.”
Yuuri smiles softly. “Yeah. I think so too.”
---------------------
It takes a while for that to be true. With Otabek training back in Kazakhstan for Worlds and Yuuri and Victor back in Japan preparing for their move back to St. Petersburg, Yuri feels very alone for the next while.
But. He starts on HRT. He practices skating. He tells Lilia to leave. He texts Otabek, and Yuuko. He deals.
By the time Yuuri comes back to train in Russia, holding hands with Victor and waving, Yuri’s heart doesn’t hurt so much anymore.
One day, as Yuuri comes running up to him and Victor, he realizes that it doesn’t hurt at all.
Yuuri was right, he decides. He has an incredible future ahead of him. He’ll find new people to love, and new people to lose, and to love again. He’ll light his own way through the darkness, and he’ll have people around him to help when he gets lost. And someday, somewhere, he’ll find himself too.
“Yuri?” Yuuri asks curiously. “You coming?”
“Yeah,” he says, then grins as he takes off at a sprint.
“No fair!” Victor calls out behind him, and Yuuri groans something about having run all the way here, are you kidding.
Yuri holds his arms out as he runs in the crisp morning air, the wind flowing through his hair and his outstretched fingers, and a strange feeling bubbles up inside him. It’s something distantly familiar, something strong and bright.
It feels a lot like happiness.